Kristen is an illustrator, photographer, and writer studying fiction as an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas, where she was awarded the Walton Family Fellowship in Fiction, the Carolyn Walton Cole Endowment Fund in Creative Writing, the Lily Peter Fellowship in Poetry, and the Feliz Christopher McKean Memorial Award in Poetry, among other fellowships. She was selected as the runner-up for the 2026 Black Warrior Review Summer Contest for Fiction, and her poetry has been published in The Tightwires Anthology, where she was a finalist for the 2025 Tightwires Anthology Prize. Kristen spends her free time reading as a fiction screener for Ploughshares and traveling with her orange cat, Steve.

Please reach out on Instagram @kristen.sneeed, or shoot an email to @KristenE.Sneed@gmail.com!